My name is Erin and I'm an interior designer. Erinteriors is who I am.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Drill bit-ness

In the end of May we will have lived in our home for five years. For five years I've been staring at the guest bath cabinetry saying, "one day, I'm going to add hardware to you...one day!"

Well, one day became today.

It all started about two weeks ago. The hubs and his dad went to the NCAA tournament here in Cleveland, so I had a Sunday night all to myself. What's a girl to do without her leading man around? Shop and eat!

So I went over to Target, and since I didn't have anyone to cook for, I took my time strolling all the aisles. (I mean like, every aisle...) and I came across their cabinet hardware on CRUH-ZA-ZEE clearance! I picked up a 10 pack of knobs for $4.24 and a two pack of pulls for $5.24! Since I didn't want to ruin a good thing, I decided to stop while I was still up (I'm speaking casino lingo now...) and left Target. (Well, not riiiiight then. I mean, I still had time to kill before meeting my mother-in-law for dinner, so I took a quick trip over to the Easter aisles and left with jelly beans, chocolate covered Peeps (omg!) and some other goodies that will reveal themselves on Easter Sunday!)

Ok, back to hardware.

I only had one drill bit, which because its tiny, I'm able to wiggle around and around (and around) a hole sometimes to make the hole big enough. (You follow?) So I figured I'd be okay drilling into the solid wood cabinets.

This morning I get all excited and decide, "Today will be the day!". I grabbed all the essentials and sat down to get down to bid-ness. I had the drill, tape measure, laser level (which, if you don't have one, buy one. Best moo-lah I've spent in a while!) and a pencil. What more could a girl need?

I start measuring the cabinet fronts, marking the center side to side and the center top to bottom of each drawer front, then used my laser (insert Austin Powers voice) and made sure they all lined up straight (because if they didn't, it would bug me- and since I only get one shot at making a hole in the front...figured it should be exact!)

I marked at first with a pen (then realized that's kinda permanent- I should use a pencil) grabbed a pencil, then couldn't really see it, so I kinda guessed for a little...then made the ultimate commitment with a Sharpie dot!

Once I had all my Sharpie dots in a row it was time to start drilling. (Remember how I mentioned before I only "had" one bit?) Right. I drilled a hole with it, wiggled it about, and nothing. It was too small and aggravating to try and make the hole bigger, so I made a trip to Home Depot (third trip in three days- I'm really glad its less than five minutes from our house!) to pick up a box of bits that came in a variety of sizes. I ended up with a set that has 31 different sizes. (I started to think, where else can I drill now? I gotta break these all in!!)

Alright, now I think I'm all set, so I start drilling and realize how messy this is. I stop, run downstairs and pick up our Dust Buster. (BTW, best invention EVER Black and Decker!) After every hole I drilled, pulled out the Dust Buster, sucked up the mess...this process repeated itself a total of 10 times!I got my first handle up in no time!Then came the tricky part...the two "drawer fronts" that aren't really drawers. Drilling the hole wasn't the problem. The problem was getting the screw in the back, so I could attach the pull on the front...

Things went smoothly from there. I drilled the rest of the holes no problem, added the pulls to the bottom two drawers on each side and then sit a road block. The screws were too short. (insert wa-wa sound)End result was this:

I searched high and low in the tool box and my Mary Poppins bag (more on that later) for longer screws. I find some (ta-da!) just to learn the threading was different. Then I get a stroke of genius. I go into our master bath and take a look at our drawers...

See the problem in the guest bath was that the drawer box added another 1/2" of thickness to the already 1/2" thick drawer front. The poor lil' screws that came with the hardware only accommodated for the drawer/door thickness...not the box thickness as well.

Well, when my wonderful father-in-law and hubby installed the hardware into the master bath, they removed the drawer fronts, drilled the hole, attached the hardware to the drawer front, then attached the drawer front back to the box...thus eliminating the extra thickness of the box and the too short screw!

So I did the same thing and it worked like a charm! Here's the end result:So it went from this in the morning:To this when I was all done: